An entire green village was available pre-show for us to explore. We got a nice little booklet explaining all the green steps taken by Jack on the tour. He donates 100% of profits to charities – YES 100%!! and he did the same on the last tour!!  Think about that for a minute.  Beautiful.

The booklet had a section of stamps to collect for doing green things:

• visiting a non-profit booth in the village, groups included:
  • reduce plastic usage
  • beaver preserve – Found out about an excellent beaver preserve right in downtown Durham.  Chatted with the people running the four related preserves.  Turns out Jack had found and contacted them personally and asked them to set up an exhibit.  They are working on an interconnected set of preserves to make an entire greenway belt, awesome.  Got two stamps from them, for visiting and donating, and they gave me a nice refillable water bottle which i used to earn another stamp! wahoo!  I wore my “Bummer” shirt (w pic of Hummer), the lady at the booth got mad cause she thought it said Hummer, and we had a good laugh.
  • CO2 offset purchasing
• donating
• buying a CO2 offset right at the concert
• getting a picture in the picture booth signifying “i commit to reduce plastic usage”
• refillable water stations – They proactively encouraged water refill usage, you got a stamp for filling up!  Sponsored by brita filters, this was unbelievable that they got permission for this, as the pavillion charges $4.50 for disposable bottles.

The show itself was a total pearl jam.  They got the party started on a high with “you and your heart” – the BEST.  Jack is truly a great guy, and he brought out LOTS of friends he’s made along the way:

• Paula Fuga, a Hawaiian woman playing ukelele to a couple of her excellent songs (country road,…)
• the awesome slide guitarist from Animal Liberation Orchestra
• G Love jamming on harmonica (I heard he helped Jack get started by playing some of Jack’s songs)
• the band’s keyboard player (Zack Gill, also from ALO) jammed on an ACCORDIAN for a while oh yeah – this guy was just so much fun, riffed on the piano like it was part of his body.
• the bassist kicked out a wicked rap

LOTS of jammmmmming ensued!  Jack also worked in some cars lyrics into “sitting waiting wishing”, perfect mashup… once he remembered the lyrics, haha, he made fun of himself… “i dont mind you comin here, and wasting all my time…”  They also played a full version of steve miller’s the joker, perfect.  And just about every great song he’s written… which is to say, A LOT OF UNBELIEVABLY GOOD MUSIC!! 

Thank you Jack!

Being fit enough was a totally different story, though. The last major event in my life was getting a chunk of my lung removed. I’ve been trying to get some running in, really huffing after a couple miles. So I was scared going into this race. Most of all, my pride told me that I didn’t want to let the three-person team down, dragging them to last place. So I tried to buck up.

The race itself was an absolute joy. We covered a ton of the ground around Umstead State Park, even swimming across Crabtree Lake, and venturing out onto Cary roads as well. The bike computers showed that we covered about 50km in about 3 1/2 hours, but I don’t think they caught it all. Clif bars and shots, as well as over 200oz of drinks laden with electrolytes and caffeine, delivered via Camelbak, kept me going well enough to prevent total collapse. Chris is an orienteering machine, he doesn’t miss a beat of the race while constantly navigating via compass and map (dangling around his neck). Gary shot off into the woods at most of the markers to collect the punches – you have to get the paper punch and punch the right spot on the scorecard.

The swimming was crazy – we had to wear “Personal Flotation Devices” – read “life vests”. The swim went on forever. There was only one redeeming part for me. The guys had told me to pack a snorkel and mask, in case there was an “underwater checkpoint”. Me having absolutely no clue, I diligently obliged, and carried the stupid thing with me the whole race – even though they were just messing with me, rofl. Awesome hahaha! But I got the last laugh, that thing saved my butt on the swim. I plopped on the snorkel, put my head down, and chugged away with a frog crawl for 30 minutes. It was zen-like bliss. They arrived on the other side with stiff necks. Ha!!

The finish was the most dramatic part of the race. We came back from collecting all the large-map points that we could with 12 minutes left on the clock. We decided to go for broke and switch out to the small map, to see if we could pick anything else up. We biked as close as we could to the closest point, and dropped the bikes and hoofed out towards the point – down a steep ridge, up the other side, down another ridge… and up… and no luck. With 6 minutes left, we gave up and headed back, but the climb was unbearable. I was pushing with both arms on my kneecaps to get my legs to push me up the hill. It took forever… and we ended up back at the finish after 7 minutes, with a 10-point 1-minute-late penalty. Dang!

I was really bummed waiting for the results. I thought we were really supposed to clear the course, and we hadn’t even come close. But wait… when they posted the scores… NO ONE had cleared the course!

And there were only 4 three-person teams… and we came in second! AWESOME! I didn’t drag us to last!! I was so happy!!

And then we realized we lost by 10 points… yes, the 10 points we lost “going for broke.” If we had just relaxed for the last 12 minutes, checking in early, we would have tied for points, perhaps even won because our time would have been better! Or if we had spent another minute and found the marker… maybe a long shot, not sure… but we would have scored 30 and lost 20, again tying for first. Another rush of adrenaline. First prize gets half their entry fee back, and half off the fee for the next race! Gnashing of teeth… But I am still glad we went for it. What a rush.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before. If you get a chance, and you have ANY basic biking/hiking ability… you should go for it. Even if you clear 20% of the course, you will have a blast giving it all you’ve got.

Chris has an awesome full writeup here. THANKS CHRIS AND GARY, it was incredible.

Between us all we hit every ride in the park. Yes, even I did the Daredevil Drop, 76′ straight down, knees knocking the whole way – I don’t know how I climbed to the top of the ride, let alone got down it – it seems like a dream now. Actually I was driven by guilt after sending the girls down first with mom, while I chickened out and rode the 360 – which was its own form of terror, my head slamming into the tunnel as the g-force was too great to keep it up and see where I was going. You can’t ride that one and NOT swallow SOME water! We had plenty of time to make the rounds and ride all our favorites. The dragon ride was a big hit – like being flushed down a huge toilet. All kinds of fun was had by all!

• mexico 1-1 south africa        the refs stole a goal from mexico – NO HE DIDN’T, know the rules dummy!
  http://getpublished.news-leader.com/wordpress/blog/2010/06/11/world-cup-south-africa-vs-mexico-offsides-for-dummies-and-espn-announcers/
• uruguay 0-0 france
• south korea 2-0 greece        s korea was on FIRE!  greece on their heels
• argentina 1-0 nigeria        nigerian goalie is AWESOME, argentinians big and strong
• england 1-1 us                us was energetic, england was ok too – green is a dead man
• algeria 0-1 slovania
• serbia 0-1 ghana
• germany 4-0 australia        ROBBED by a totally ridiculous red card from the mexican ref, most calls were TOTALLY BAD
• netherlands 2-0 denmark        holland in orange looking really good
• japan 1-0 camaroon            japan hard working, camaroon too but frustrated
• italy 1-1 paraguay            at first i had the teams confused – paraguay was energetic!
• new zealand 1-1 slovakia    gorgeous nz cross+header at 93 minutes!
• portugal 0-0 ivory coast    c.ronaldo looking good – yellow carded!, ivory coast getting some shots on goal
• brazil 2-1 n.korea            brazil not as effective as you’d think
• hoduras 0-1 chile            missed most of it
• spain 0-1 swiss                HOLY CRAP!  swiss strikers showtime!  spain hammered over and over, hit post 2-3 times, couldn’t get it in!
• swiss striker ROLLED into the net, another followed it in – spain defender came up with cut face
• germany 0-1 serbia            klose red-carded, germany was screwed
• s.africa -
• us 2-2 slovania                TOTAL $#*$ ROBBERY!  no one even knows why us goal 3 was denied!!  US WAS ON FIRE!
• uruguay 1-0 mexico            mexico the better strikers, uruguay scored and played defense
• france 1-2 s.africa            france, the disgrace of the 2010 world cup, AS I PREDICTED – zidane’s shame lives on
• argentina 2-0 greece        greece sucks – altho their one lone striker had impressive moments!
• nigeria 2-2 s korea            awesome game, well played by nigeria but not enough to go on – going to miss that goalie
• us vs algeria                do or die!  algeria came out shooting first, tense – then us got upper hand, scored – DENIED ‘offsides’ bah!
  then chaos at the net at 91st minute, Donovan follows up to SCORE!!!  win 1-0, US GOES THRU!!
• england vs slovenia            england scores first half, keeps game muted after that – not stellar but ENGLAND GOES THRU!  AMAZING!!

I did my best pirate impression and kept the girls on the run – including Sparrow (Wren), Calypso (Scarlett), Starfish (Savanah), Spongebob and Patrick (Olivia and her friend), and my arch-enemy, Rat (Reiley). We rafted, they rafted, we captured, they walked the plank, they stowed away, they abandoned ship, they stole our oars, they captured the treasure from us, they buried the treasure, they swam right past us with it without giving it away. They did a fine job of keeping Captain Jack (Richard) and me baffled as to the whereabouts of the rare and valuable green sword for most of the time at sea. Scurvy little sea scum rats!

We had a nice campfire with dogs burgers corn beans and smores, classic. Cameron drew the lucky straw and came with us, he was a darling. And the new tent is fantastic.

It was a compact and fun trip, and we made it back in time to relax, watch more World Cup (go US!), and celebrate Father’s day. What a life. :>

So… I am reposting his inspired responses so they aren’t lost in the bottom of an overstuffed inbox.  All in good fun.

On 05/17/2010 10:05 PM, Dan Miller wrote:

I’m tired of people making up complete lies and attributing them falsely to famous people. (Robert A. Hall is the idiot that penned the whining rant below without ANY sources. Robert D. Hall is the CSI actor, no relation)

I’m tired of Republicans citing quotes from the Founding Fathers that were never said – they do it ALL THE TIME (show me where Ben Franklin ever said that. I can show you several sources attributing it to Libertarian, James Bovard, from 1994) If an email says “Andy Rooney” or “Paul Harvey” or “fill-in-the-Founding-Father”, look it up. In my experience, most times, it is falsely attributed.

I’m tired of idiots like this inferring that Democrats have no work ethic and support laziness.

I’m tired of people that don’t take responsibility for their emails, being unable to formulate their own ideas.

I’m tired of being told that poor people are lazy.

I’m tired of being told that rich people work harder than everyone else.

I’m tired of hearing the rich whine that the government is taking all their money. I have yet to meet a poor person that said they used to be rich, but the government took all their money (the casinos on Wall Street are not the government). Okay… Willie Nelson maybe?

I’m tired of hearing the Republicans say America is Communist and Socialist and then trash Democrats for saying how bad America is, when in reality, I only hear Republicans throwing up their hands, giving up hope, and screaming that America is heading into the dumpster.

I’m tired of Racists using fear to foster hatred and grow their ranks.

I’m tired of Freedom of Religion being applied only to Christians

I’m tired of Republicans shouting from the rooftops that Obama is against freedom, Obama is against the individual, Obama wants an all-knowing government, and other ridiculous sweeping generalities that have absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

I’m tired of lame attempts to make a list seem more weighty. Bush was criticized for exercising? Really?! That’s in your top list of complaints??!!

I’m tired of cry-baby Republicans that do nothing but complain, vote no, yet offer no solutions.

I’m tired of Republicans claiming that illegal aliens are on Welfare. It’s just not true. If a person can’t prove citizenship, they’re ineligible for Welfare. Period. Find out the facts before you try to rebut them.

I’m tired of doing the research that these stupid idiots refuse to do. I’m tired of my mother being duped by their lies. I’m tired, but I keep on trying to defend the truth.

-Dan Miller, May 17, 2010

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Subject: FW: “I’m 63, and I’m tired!!” (Snopes.com verified)
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 17:35:40 -0400

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner.

Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.”

Benjamin Franklin

Takes awhile to read but worth it

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!
This is your chance to make a difference.

Robert A. Hall is the actor who plays the coroner on CSI if you watch that show. This should be required reading for every man, woman and child in the United States of America . “I’m 63 and I’m Tired” by Robert A. Hall I’m 63.  Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired. I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it. I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.”  Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money. I’m tired of being told how bad  America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities  America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of  Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of  China , the crime and violence of  Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of  Iran , and the freedom of speech of  Venezuela . I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers”; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to. I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois. I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln  wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government. I’m tired of a news media that thinks Bush’s fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama’s, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush’s military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004. I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in  Saudi Arabia  to teach love and tolerance. I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a  three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough. I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana. I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next?  Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”?  And, no,  I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion.  I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military…. Those are the citizens we need. I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war?  You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave?  Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are?  Not even close.  So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear. I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in  Illinois , where the “Illinois Combine” of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet. I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor. Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing. I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems. Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter. Robert  A. Hall is a Marine  Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the  Massachusetts    State  Senate. There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference.

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